*https://www.thesun.co.uk/archives/news/657455/tan-addict-spends-30k-to-stay-brown/
To some that may seem extreme, a little crazy, or simply insane. But is it more mental* than splashing out £30K on a big fat wedding, a bling watch, fancy car, or betting on black or red? What’s your mental*?
Ours is seeing just how far peoples’ minds can run in complete darkness, breaking age old sex taboos with a grandma, creating a world where everyone protects animals, searching for stolen art, saving a mates life at the pub, hacking bogus products, plumping up HOLLYWOOD, rescuing baking with Google, making the nation LOL more or racing pet micro mammoths against middle-class handbag poochies across a freshly mowed lawn on a misty Sunday morning in Highgate... We don’t see mental* as anything negative, it’s the total opposite, a positive punch in the air against blandvertising.
Now while the industry wrestles with what it is or should be the world keeps going, and we get our kicks from moving with it. Working here, there, and everywhere, making our ideas travel. Misfits like creative gypsies, eyeing up opportunities with MacBook Pros for caravans.
So, bring on change we say, because it changes everything. Who knows where it will lead. For us, our creativity led us to Holland, Sweden, Romania, UAE, India, and recently THE BIG WIDE APPLE. A couple of years ago, the opportunity came knocking from NYC McCann Worldgroup… mental*! So how could we refuse!
Where does this wannabe global creative mentality come from?
It’s our DNA from our folks, and their folks. Who left their motherland for foreign shores with only a passport to their name. No work. No cash. No idea about pie & mash. Not even a pair of pants to change into! Sounds like a reality TV show, but this was their life and their mission. With little to no social mobility, they chose opportunity.
They took on the brief of a lifetime and they smashed it! For us, when a new brief presents itself, we don’t think ‘what if’, we just think ‘do’. Drawing upon the parallels between the ad industry and what our folks dealt with to make the most of the opportunity in front of us. How they had to be creative to survive and succeed. Cooking up new strategies and new ideas to elevate themselves for the next chapter as their stories had to continue.
Denesh's late father jumped on a plane from India in the late 60s. Onboard, he used his last few pennies to buy some smokes and Jonnie Walker on the rocks, a hopeful toast to the future. Only when he touched UK soil, he realised there was no money to call his brother who had landed before. Somehow, he flipped the situation and made a reverse-charge call from a public phone box. Fast forward a couple of years, and he opened the first Art Studio in West London, Southall - A.K. Studio - his own professional photography business. Having shot Bollywood stars and celebs in India, he had to make it work in the UK. His shot in the dark paid off, as his light bulb moment developed into great exposure.
AK (Dad) with legendary actor, singer and musician Kishore Kumar | Mum posing in West London
While Denesh's mum had her own adventures. Her parents left Kenya with nine kids in tow, joining many others leaving Kenya for the UK. She went to school, learned English, made friends, and discovered the best of 1970s British cuisine like pasties & chips. She adapted quickly, she had to, working young at a Sweet Factory. As the Asian community grew, she grew with it, having 3 kids and running her own grocery store 7 days a week. Opportunity eventually took them to Southsea, where they were one of very few south asian families. Every day became a new experience. Much like how no two days are the same for us, new agency, new brief, new brand, new people, new feedback… And we got no idea where that brief will take us until we jump on that bronco and ride it. Then the fun begins.
In the early 70s, Anuj’s folks ‘chose’ to move from Kenya to the UK, but really, the choice was made for them – Kenya’s radical ‘Africanisation’ policies forced them to uproot, close up, sell up, and pack up. It’s like the worst rebrief from a client... start again with a slashed budget and less time. Fortunately, they’re a resilient breed, so they thought we’ll pitch ourselves and back ourselves somewhere else… the UK.
Asians from Kenya arriving in England after being expelled in the 70’s
Anuj’s dad first moved to India to study, the rest of his family followed, setting up shop. But the work wasn’t there, so he applied to move to the UK, a two-year process of back and forth (like client presentation v20 to get that one gold idea through!) He went back to Kenya to work, but it wasn’t a step back, two years later he finally moved to London at 24. Part one of the strategy paid off. Now, an accountant by day and student by night, he worked for a firm that dealt with the entertainment industry, doing Jamiroquai’s books and landing Anuj his first work placement at TV graphics house in Soho at 16, which sparked a creative flame.
Anuj's folks exploring a new world
At just 20, Anuj’s mum got a job transfer from the High Commission in Nairobi to London. Coming over with her mum and two brothers. She met Anuj’s dad, got married, had two boys, laid down roots. And went from the Kenya Embassy to local community influencer - school dinner lady, local doctor’s receptionist, and local post office where she closed the shutters on a gun, all while hand-making Christmas decorations and babysitting kids after school from home in between. Like any creative, multiple projects keep the creative juices flowing. And they just got on with it, whatever it took to stay on brief, solve the problems of the day, and ensure their followers (two young boys) were happy.
For both of our folks, change was the only constant thing, and to succeed they adapted with it. Even though social class was, and still is, a barrier to career progression, it didn’t stop them, they were prolific.
Growing up, they created fusion before fusion was a thing, everything had an Indian twist to it. Hacking the system to tackle everyday problems, seeing solutions from a different cultural perspective whatever the issue. Creativity passed down to us, that defines us, as it feeds into our everyday approach to briefs, to life.
Now that's mental*. We're just an off breed of this mental*.
What they did has made life much easier for us. As we come from them, easy isn’t something we do either – who would have thought that two asian lads would become creative directors, working with agencies around the world, not our parents, they still don't really get what we do! It’s not been an easy ride getting here, but thanks to them, we're spoilt today with so many choices, so many ways to make dreams come true, you can 'virtually' make anything work in any reality. With access to more data than ever, new tech solutions, and generative Ai, creativity lives in endless forms. The combination of many parts allows our ideas to be culturally relevant, on point, and impactful to solve real business problems.
No matter what you're trying to solve, whatever you’re into, nothing should come between you and the idea. As greatness never comes that easy. That’s why we switched to the US and became VP Creative Directors at McCann/MRM (they love a title in ‘Merica). Working across national US accounts, multiple global network accounts, and many projects for Reckitt, Sanofi, L'Oréal, Mastercard, LEGO, and Motorola. As well as new business pitches and overseeing multiple teams across the US – we recall one production call had five different time zones, 3 years ago this would have been near impossible.
But you know what's totally mental*, we didn’t even go to New York! We didn't jump on any flights, spend months sorting Visas, or get a tour of the office… HR didn’t even give us a virtual induction! We just turned on our macs and boom, we were working in NYC with a New York State of Mind.
We’ve been doing all this remotely from our homes in London since, with a second screen on the world – watching our back yards filled with pigeons, crows, seagulls, foxes, and cats all eyeballing each other at the same time, while seeing bodger neighbours bodge their lawns, but most importantly being mere metres away from the ones we call mental*… family. Yet somehow, we cracked the code, working UK hours for US clients, with UK holidays!
Think open.
There’s never been a more exciting time to be a creative, as the creative landscape is forever changing, the lines are totally blurred as it’s getting even more mental*. Now you can make big yellow skips actually skip, make Jacob’s crackers go totally crackers or confuse the hell out of Ai with baby talk, ‘Coochy-coo’... keep an open mind and you can probably do it.
We've proved having an open and hybrid mind can work. And now, the world has never been so open to the reality that you can work from anywhere, it’s not so mental* after all. The office doesn't have to be restricted to one location, it’s probably the only good thing out of the pandemic. But don't get us wrong, we're total believers that office culture has its merit, we love that cross pollination of ideas and people IRL. An organic conversation, a spark of something you see or hear, or even essential pub chat can take you places.
And for all you brilliant agencies, studios, clients, recruiters, and great creative folk, break free from creating invisible borders or putting creativity in tick boxes. If our folks had stayed put in their boxes, we wouldn’t be here today. Fortunately, they rose to the challenge, and looked at problems differently. Let’s look at everything sideways because nobody knows where the next buzz, ping, call, or email could lead to for you or us.
We’re ready for the next brief, are you?
Be mental*. Be global.
*Mental is sometimes used as a slang term with the same meaning as the informal sense of crazy, especially in the U.K. It's typically used to describe a person or their behaviour as being extreme or positively illogical in some way.
Anuj+Denesh